Went again to Rosmalen for the second day of men's qualifying and also a lot of practising players. Again, met Sarah and James/Ed in Schiedam and we got in Rosmalen slightly before ten. And then the day began And be warned, I am very happy! You will have to keep on reading if you want to know why

Mario Ancic was practising on a court together with his coach Rohan Goetzke. He seemed to want to get there early, I guess. On the court next to him was Tomas Cibulec, who is still without partner Leos Friedl (who was still in a semi final in Queen's), but found a practice partner in Jiri Vanek later on the day.

A lot of players who had already lost in qualifying were there today. Sebastian Fitz was just wandering about; Matej Bocko was doing the same. He was a bit shocked I recognized him, I think (and then after a group of kids approached him - sorry, Matej!). Asked him what he was still doing here and the Slovak said in perfect American English that he couldn't get a ticket until Tuesday, so he was still here practising. The Argentine guys Emiliano Massa and Leonardo Mayer were also still there, practising quite a lot for Wimbledon juniors I guess.

Anna-Lena Grönefeld was also up early today, but she wasn't up and about that much for the rest of the day. Her and her coach had a court to themselves and she had the stretch-thing around her ankles again.

You may have heard some bad stories about Aravane Rezaï's dad. I am here to confirm these stories, I think. Forget about Jim Pierce, Damir Dokic, Stefano Capriati and all those other horrible tennis dads. Aravane's dad is by far the worst. They were sent off a court cause they had to prepare it for qualies, so Aravane went to the court where ALG was and they shared it for a while. And then her dad seemed to tell Anna-Lena to move to a different court Her coach then said to some Japanese people he know "This guy is crazy! Crazy!" *LOL* But they did leave. Probably cause they wanted to get away from psycho dad from hell asap.

Anna-Lena then moved to the court where Shahar Peer was looking as great as yesterday. She's a really pretty girl, but I seem to be alone in thinking that. Maria Kirilenko was practising on the court next to it, with Dinara Safina if I am not mistaken. Can't remember exactly.

Gilles Muller was also up early. He practised three times or so today. One of those times he was with Guillermo Garcia-Lopez That guy is hot! Well, I already knew that but it is now confirmed. And nice too! He and Gilles shared a court with Jan Hernych and Lars Burgsmüller, who brought his girlfriend too. Guillermo was the best of the four, in my opinion, though Jan looked pretty cool too.

After them, Mark Philippoussi went on court with his coach. He also brought his barely legal girlfriend who looks horrible with those glasses. She personifies the word bimbo, in my opinion! Mark himself seemed to have a good day and was nice to the fans! Also on court were Andrei Pavel and Gabriel Trifu, though Andrei later practised with Mark alone. Did not see much of this, other than that Andrei had great trouble with Mark's serves. But then again, who wouldn't?

Cyril Suk, Pavel Vizner, Robbie Koenig and Michael Kohlmann played a practise match on the court next to it. Can't believe Michael lost in qualifying. He also brought his girlfriend, by the way.

Also saw Jean-François Bachelot's match after he was down 2-0 in the final set against Tobias Klein. It was great to watch the match, cause Jean-François, which becomes J-F which then sounds like Jeff, plays grass court tennis the way it is supposed to be. Lots of volleying and approach shots. Great! But well, not great enough cause he lost to this short German. JFB made up for the break at 2-0, but got broken again and had a horrible game when Klein served at 5-4. Klein took the point and shouted COME ONNNNNNN really loudly. It must be his first ever main draw spot he clinched here. Kudos to him. Oh, Michael Llodra was watching part of the match as well as Cedric Mourier.

Did not see much of Nicolas Thomann versus Philipp Petzschner. I know Petzschner won in a close match. Second year in a row that he qualified, so he'll be happy.

Oh. Martina Navratilova is an absolute bitch. I already didn't really like her yesterday, when she walked on when I wanted to take a picture and she said Go ahead and when she told a journalist off completely, but it was even worse today. I ignored her myself, but there was this deaf girl there who had a large tennis ball she wanted to get signed with a black marker. So she held the marker rather clumsily with the inky top of it up rather than down. And Martina goes: "How do you hold a pen?" And she got no response, just stood there and repeated it. Then she was told the girl was blind and she goes Oh, OK and signed anyway. Bitchy woman!

Saw Davide Sanguinetti and decided to kind of tease him with his Groningen experience . At the Groningen Challenger last year he behaved like a total asshole in his match against Igor Kunitsyn. The linesmen and ball kids were really bad, I must say, but he went WAY out of line. Things he said were "What are you doing in that chair? Masturbating or something?" and "This is like back to the Futures here". So I asked him if he liked it better here than in Groningen and he goes "Groningen.. Pfffff" :haha :

Jean-René Lisnard and Jérôme Haehnel practised together early in the morning and they were actually not too unfriendly. I really dislike Lisnard cause he was a complete moron in Scheveningen a few years back and I have heard many bad stories, but he was alright here which is good. Both of them will lose early, I predict.

Mark Philippoussis came back again later to practise with Tommy Robredo. Tommy is always lovely and great! Julien Benneteau and Paul-Henri Mathieu were on the court too, but I didn't watch much of this cause I was watching a certain woman who you will read about later! Mathieu had already practised with Sjeng Schalken at that time. By the way, Gisela's brother Alejandro was watching part of Tommy's practice session, which only confirms my suspicions hehe! Also saw Raemon Sluiter somewhere, but he didn't really practise much.

At the end of the afternoon Christophe Rochus showed up to practise with Stanislas Wawrinka. Christophe was volleying quite well! I hope he can win a round or two, after he was demolished here by Sjeng not too long ago.

Björn Phau practised together with Philipp Kohlschreiber. Both of them should consider them lucky to be allowed to play here, with their rankings. Philipp no longer dyed his hair blonde. He has beautiful blue eyes though!

I saw Marta Domachowska and Jelena Kostanic practise together. Marta also practised with Lucie Safarova in the late afternoon and seemed to be enjoying herself way more than yesterday. I wonder how Lucie, the younger clone of Anna Chakvetadze, will do on grass, cause her best results (winning Estoril and Prostejov) were on clay.

No sign of Karol Kucera yet, which sucks cause I really want to see him I hope he doesn't pull out last minute. Someone told me she saw Haas, but that was not on the courts and I am not sure it is true.

Claudine Schaul practised twice today, one time with Mariana Diaz-Oliva. I think she really ditched her coach, cause she is surrounded by some woman all the time now. She doesn't look that happy either. Also spotted Claudine's partner Lisa McShea who was quite nice. She won here last year with Milagros Sequera, who probably plays Wimbledon Qualies now. I don't think these two will take the title though, with some other good (or better) teams in the draw.

Anna Smashnova practised with Virginia Ruano Pascual. She does not look very good and could go out early. She is way shorter than I had expected Vivi is really inconsistent: one moment she will be playing brilliant shots and the other moment her game is completely shattered. Anna later practised with her coach, whereas Vivi played with Maria Elena Camerin.

And Maria Elena is by far the biggest moment of the day; the absolute highlight!!! I asked her to sign a picture I took in Hasselt, and that I don't particularly like that much, and she said it was a lovely picture. She wondered if I had another one and said "I can pay you" . I said that I didn't have another one, so she asked if I am coming again, but I was not planning on doing that (it's so expensive ). But then she says that she could give me a pass and again that she can pay for the pictures. I said I'd feel like I am taking advantage of her, but she says "No.. No". I also showed my other two pictures of her that I had and she also liked them. One of them was of her and Flavia (her reaction was "Que bella!") and her coach, who is not necessarily tall, but dark and handsome and very friendly, said that Pennetta is coming. I was a bit confused, cause Flavia is supposed to be playing Eastbourne, but he said she pulled out injured and will be coming to Rosmalen tomorrow to practise! Guess she didn't want to go to Eastbourne to practise then..

Anyways, they asked if I was going to be there later at four o'clock and I said I was going to be there all day and she said she would have the pass then! So at that time I got the pass! I wasn't even planning on going again, cause it really costs too much (€30 a ticket!!!), but now I can go! I will be going Monday - Thursday now!!! And I will be sharing a room with Sarah [inkymisafan], so she had better behave

I was kind of flabbergasted throughout the day! Maria Elena was so sweet and nice. It's a pity her game is going down the toilet though I really hope she can get it together and beat Stosur. She was not doing too well in practise, but her serve was good. Threw her racquet a few times out of frustration though. Have to get the pictures developped for her somewhere in Den Bosch too, tomorrow!

Anyways, on to the less important players (obviously Maria Elena shoots up in my list of favourite players - I already really liked her, but way more now ). Anabel Medina Garrigues was practising with Nuria Llagostera Vives and let out a huge shriek that caused everyone to look at her. Her hair is really messed up (she has some blonde-ish and some black streaks in what seems like a weird pony) and she really needs to keep the cap on.

Elena Dementieva was out there again, practising with Denisa Chladkova like yesterday and also having Richard Krajicek as her hitting partner later. Richard was playing a legend's match later against Cédric Pioline, which I saw nothing of. Oh, and John van Lottum was in some celebrity exhibition match as well.

Dominique van Boekel was there as well. I asked for a picture and she said sure and then asked if I was from a magazine or paper or whatever I don't look professional ; ) Wondered what she was doing there, but she said she is playing doubles, which I actually didn't quite expect. She has a funny accent too. I think she is a very pretty girl.

Iveta Benesova and Klara Koukalova practised together again. Klara had her boyfriend with her again, but fortunately they were not performing such indecent actions en plein public today. Klara looks great on court

Gaston Etlis and Martin Rodriguez also practised together on some court I couldn't be bothered about at that time.

Jordan Kerr, Jim Thomas, Rick Leach and Travis Parrott played a practice match. I gave Jim the picture I took of him in Rotterdam and he liked it He said Rotterdam was not a very sweet story, cause he lost early and hard alongside Robbie Koenig Forgot to take a new picture though.

That was about it! Now have to grab some stuff together, pack my bag and go to Rosmalen for four more, very unexpected, days! Have to wake up early again *YAWN* Don't really expect to get any big reports of those days, cause I won't really have any internet access other than the crappy laptops (just can't work with them). Will keep you posted on anything really interesting though!